Nowadays, many different industries have recognized timekeeping as an essential part of their work processes. There’s a wide range of options that you can adapt to serve your needs, all depending on your field, company culture and lastly the overall goals set by your team.

Come to think of it, since ancient times the practice of keeping track of time spent on work has been the easiest way to determine costs. The different styles of timekeeping have certainly come a long way over the years. It actually started evolving after the Industrial Revolution, when the relationships between employees and employers were defined by the “time is money” principle. As a matter of fact, just attendance and punctuality data was not enough. The employers and customers alike were rather keen on finding out where exactly was paid time being utilized. That’s how timesheets came into existence. Earlier only the privileged professionals like lawyers and accountants would use it. But today it has become the norm in almost all fields including, teaching, construction, healthcare, hospitality, logistics, manufacturing among others.  As the technology evolved and electronic devices turned into work tools in many areas, detailed activity monitoring advanced further, special software started being used to record users’ activities on their computers and prepare detailed reports on the time spent in different tasks.

Today, various methods of timekeeping are used, depending on the kind of data and level of detailing required. They are considered a source of vital information for businesses as well as individuals. A good time tracking app can really help in optimizing and improving the workflow in several key areas. Accessing detailed time records can really keep the guess-work out of project planning, especially for the team leads. When you have in hand the exact data on how long it takes for the team members to complete specific tasks, it is a lot easier and less challenging to estimate their work on future projects.

It can also be greatly beneficial to the administrative staff, especially in cases where some of the staff members might be working on a flexible schedule from possibly remote locations. In real time it would have been quite a task to follow up with them and keep a track record of their tasks being completed. But with the help of a time tracking software, everything can be recorded and the timesheets would be pretty much in order, thereby reducing the stress on the management and accounting staff.

Contrary to the popular belief, calculating costs of work is not the only benefit of timekeeping. It can also be a metric to judge, analyze and improve performance, work on productivity, and obtain vital business data. Time records allow managers and business owners to figure out important trends and help regular employees see where their time goes and make their work process more efficient.

How does time-tracking benefit businesses:

Accurate data for billing and accounting

Beneficial for companies that bill their customers on an hourly basis. Maintaining exact timesheets is of high importance as it comes rather handy while solving problems of under-billing, if any. It thus ensures a friendly rapport between the company and the customer.

Transparency and traceability

Timekeeping data when made available in a summarized format helps in providing insights as to how certain tasks were performed and how much time it took. This ensures in keeping a tab on further projects and avoiding any slack time.

Better planning

Plans for future workloads, based on previous data, turn out to be more precise. Regular timekeeping data also helps in identifying time-consuming activities and eliminates them or optimizes the work process for future assignments.

Better work management

Setting up work processes requires defining time estimates and deadlines. They require knowing how much time is normally required for specific tasks, so it’s easier to set them up based on the previously collected data.

How does time-tracking benefit employees:

  •       Optimized work process.
  •       Prioritize work depending on the level of difficulty and time consumption
  •       Keeps procrastination at bay
  •       Motivation to spend time more mindfully by eliminating distractions
  •       Overworking is quickly identified
  •       Helps in identifying what takes more time and thus detects possible overloads
  •       Defines scope of responsibilities
  •       Facilitates in limiting workload to reasonable values
  •       Provides a valid reason to deny excessive assignments

While there are many benefits to maintain a timesheet, one cannot overlook the shortcomings too. It can be very challenging for the staff to ignore timesheets to the very last minute and often complain that it is too cumbersome for them and takes too much of their time. Hence it is absolutely necessary and crucial to have something that is easy to use and provides more accurate results and more value of the collected data. This is where special tools or software comes to the rescue

Clockineasy.com is one such Time Tracking App that has been designed keeping in mind human nature. It is so simple to use that the staff simply cannot come up with excuses to not use it. Designed specifically for hourly employees, it offers more than one device to clock in the respective time. Whether you have employees working in remote locations or are out on field duty, it helps in maintaining a consistent time-tracking option. It is even helpful when you are outsourcing from any corner of the world through a freelancer or contract-based consultant. As Clockineasy.com works on a cloud-based model, it can easily access the tasks being worked upon at any given point of time. What’s more, it is compatible with multiple devices like the mobile phone, desktop, tablets or even manual entry for that matter. Just one swipe or a few clicks/taps and you can turn any device into an employee time clock.

It has been designed in such a manner so as to make labour law compliance much simpler:

Rounding
Custom rounding rules for timesheets by enhancing payroll and record accuracy
Overtime
Easier way to implement the company overtime policies so as to auto-generate FLSA compliant payroll reports.
Breaks
Simpler break entries for your entire staff to ensure local labour law compliance has been met